Testing of software is a critical step in the software development lifecycle. The objective of the testing is to verify and validate the integration of the software, the hardware and the configuration thereof, and to prevent malfunction of the software when in use.
Software testing is typically performed after the development of the software is completed. Therefore, the software testing period is on the critical path of the software development project. However, the software testing process may suffer from various inefficiencies, which may cause the testing period to extend beyond what was planned, and may cause an increase in the work effort needed to complete the software development project and delay the introduction of the functionality to the users.
One of the major causes of software testing inefficiency and delays is the unavailability of testing environments. For example, a group of software testers may plan to start the testing of a software component on a specific date and plan to complete the testing by a planned date, based on the capacity and the skills of the testing teams assigned to the project.
However, the execution of the test plan may be slowed repeatedly due to unavailability of suitable software testing environments. In many organizations, such delays in software testing are perceived as a given. In other words, down time of environments is a known issue. Currently, the typical software testing process includes waiting until there is a problem, fixing the problem, and continuing the testing until the next problem occurs. There is thus a need for addressing these and/or other issues associated with the prior art.